This Pagani Zonda has covered more miles than a cab: "the grandmother".

Some cars are adored for their power, others for their rarity. But very few are adored for their endurance. At PaganiHowever, there is one model that is neither the fastest nor the most powerful... but probably the most respected. Factory employees have affectionately christened it "La Nonna" (the grandmother). And with good reason: this Zonda has lived several lives.

It all began in 1998, a year before the official presentation of the Pagani Zonda. This prototype, known internally as the second development chassis, was used to develop the first C12 powered by a 6.0-liter Mercedes-AMG V12. At the time, Horacio Pagani probably had no idea that this car would become the rolling memory of his entire brand.

Because instead of ending up in a museum after the initial tests, the prototype will continue to work. Over and over again. Over the years, every evolution of the Zonda passed through its hands: more powerful engines, new gearboxes, aerodynamic elements, suspension, brakes... From the C12 to the radical Zonda R, via the C12-S, F or the ultimate 760 series, almost everything was tested on this chassis. In the shadow of the models delivered to customers, this car becomes a permanent laboratory.

And the miles are piling up. Many kilometers! While a supercar rarely exceeds a few tens of thousands of kilometers in its lifetime, La Nonna crosses almost absurd thresholds. It exceeds one million kilometers. The equivalent of thirty circumnavigations of the globe for a car capable of nearly 350 km/h. At this stage, it's no longer a prototype: it's a team member.

It's precisely for this reason that Pagani employees give her her nickname. Like a grandmother, it has seen the birth of every generation. She has accompanied every technical evolution and survived every experiment. She is the doyenne, the one who was there before all the others. In 2015, to celebrate Horacio Pagani's 60th birthday, the teams decided to give him a very special gift. They completely restored the car to near-new condition and even added an official badge bearing his nickname. After an exceptional testing career, the Zonda is finally retired.

Today, La Nonna is on display at the factory in San Cesario sul Panaro, near Modena. Surrounded by hypercars worth millions of euros, it remains perhaps the most precious of all. Not for its technical specifications, but for what it represents: twenty years of development, experiments, mistakes, progress... and over a million kilometers of Pagani history.